


Birthdays

by TheInevitableConclusion



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Birthdays, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-29
Updated: 2012-02-29
Packaged: 2017-10-31 21:39:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/348628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheInevitableConclusion/pseuds/TheInevitableConclusion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes does not celebrate his birthday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birthdays

**Author's Note:**

> Just a fluffy thing I wrote for [Suchanadorer's](http://archiveofourown.org/users/suchanadorer/pseuds/suchanadorer) birthday, back after we'd seen the preview trailers, but before Series 2 aired.

Sherlock Holmes does not celebrate his birthday. He’s hated birthdays since he was a child. Mummy used to invite all the school children, but they always wanted to play games, they were never interested in cataloguing the types of insects found in the garden or deciphering who had walked where by measuring shoe sizes. They always brought the worst presents; little plastic robots and army men that they wanted him to open and smile at and stage complex battles with. Mummy encouraged them; Mummy wanted him to be more like Mycroft, with his painstakingly created models and his historically accurate desktop battlefields. But Sherlock didn’t want to play. What was the use of carrying an army man around in one’s pocket? Sherlock carried a book, but he didn’t need it often. He’d rather watch the people around him.

 

Sherlock Holmes does not have a problem with personal space.  He kisses Mummy (and Mrs. Hudson), hugs the people who deserve it, looms menacingly or touches flirtatiously if it suits his purpose. As a child, Father had let him throw tantrums, left him pounding the floor with his clenched white fists, but Mummy hadn’t minded when he crawled into her chair with her and buried his tear-flushed face in her lap. She’d card her fingers through his curls and tell him he was brilliant and one day he’d fit in, and when he was feeling better she’d ask him to read to her.

 

Sherlock Holmes does not have friends. The children grew tired of the boy who wouldn’t play with them, who sneered at their gifts even when they brought puzzles and chemistry sets. At uni everyone wanted something, a bit of Mummy’s money, an introduction to Father’s social circles, a foot in the door through Mycroft, or just the biology lab answers. Sherlock could see through all of them; he knew what they’d ate and who they’d shagged and how long they’d stayed up typing out their final papers. And they _bored_ him. The only one who didn’t was Victor, but Victor wasn’t a friend either. Victor was…Victor wasn’t around very long.

 

On his thirty-fifth birthday, Sherlock finds a white cake with a yellow smiley face made of icing waiting for him on the kitchen worktop. There is a note tucked beside it that reads: “Happy Birthday. There is bread and cereal and coffee. Eat something. I’ll bring curry later. JW” Sherlock cuts one of the eyes out of the cake and eats it. He rejects two requests for consultation (“tedious”) and solves the third just by reading the email (“dull”), then lies on the sofa and ignores the ringing of his telephone (3 Missed Calls – Mycroft Holmes, Mycroft Holmes, Mycroft Holmes).

 

The text from Lestrade comes just as John arrives home, and Sherlock takes it as a gift from the universe. John shoves the curry into the fridge and Sherlock shoves the Sig into John’s hands (“Why do you have…stop taking things from my room!”) and they dash from the flat. Six hours later, when they’ve tracked their quarry to an abandoned warehouse, Sherlock remembers the children with their plastic soldiers. The small army doctor beside him likes his deductions and he can knock out a man with a well-place hit to the temple (“I had the situation under control John, you needn’t have intervened”).

 

Back at the flat, John laughs at the cake’s amputation and warms up the curry. He kicks Sherlock’s legs aside and Sherlock lets him, accepts a plate of food and actually eats (most) of it, sitting beside John, their elbows and knees touching. Sherlock actually wants to read the book John gives him (“Thank you John, that’s…thank you) but when he turns to look at his flatmate, John looks puzzled and reaches out to touch his forehead (“Is that blood? When were you hit?”) Sherlock doesn’t mind when John combs his fingers through Sherlock’s curls checking for cuts, or when he pats Sherlock’s shoulder briskly, pulls him up from the sofa and tells him to go get some sleep.  John Watson is not Sherlock’s friend. John Watson is everything. John Watson is staying.


End file.
